My shrink told me I'm valuable.
This is a crazy concept!
We were talking about my mom croaking eventually and she was asking how our relationship was before all this 24 hour sickness care started 5 years ago
And I was thinking well. It goes back way farther than 5 years. I was like. Um. I think I've been mothering my mom since I was 9.
I did read somewhere that when your mom gets divorced, the daughter usually becomes the new husband. Well if that isn't a kick in the pants job description
Of course my mom worked and she was present in the house and she gave us lots of freedom to make our own mistakes and she showed us how to make many mistakes, unknowingly valuable lessons. But as the daughter you protect your mom's heart. That's the heart you know as well as your own. It was there beating first before you knew about yours. You trusted hers. She told me everything would be ok. And to have some more creamed chipped beef while you were thinking about it. And to snuggle under blankets on the couch when nothing else fixed it.
I think we expect alot out of moms and dads. They seem so fearless and stalwart. Is that spelled right? They're there to be strong and ignored and alternately desperately needed and longed for. I like being human. It's so tragic and funny, messy and unlikely and beautiful.
I've been helping Kurt's horse get adjusted to life down the street. And helping that new farmer get used to her new horsekeeping, she's never kept a horse at her house and now she has three. I helped her by taking her out on the trail with my horses, not knowing for sure how my horses would do either, Meri is young and mischievous and Maggie wants to kill all other horses not in her group, but they did fine, we led her and her horse down to the water and we all did fine. That's the trembly path we all walk, the not knowing, hoping we'll do okay and then climbing aboard and doing the thing. Even if it's just a graduation lunch. Or having to meet a new person. Even though I'm already getting old, everything seems still to be like a flower opening, every day.
I'm not done learning. I am valuable.
